An estimated 162,000 women and girls will be buried in Africa by the end of this year. They could easily be saved if they received essential maternity services. Credit: Bonnie Allen/IPS
NAIROBI, May 25 2012 (IPS) – Three years ago, the African Union began a continent-wide campaign to reduce the number of women who die when pregnant or giving birth.
Called the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa, its slogan is Africa cares: no woman should die while giving life. This was widely welcomed as many African societies give motherhood special status.
The sad truth, though, is that giving life is a leading cause of death of …
Population pressure in Pakistan. Credit: M. Fahim Siddiqi/IPS
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 11 2012 (IPS) – “No scalpel, no stitch and no rest needed,” guarantees Dr. Ghulam Shabbir Sudhayao, referring to the surgical procedure called vasectomy the least popular method of birth control around the world, including Pakistan.
“People confuse vasectomy with castration (surgical removal of the testicles) and that scares them away,” Sudhayao, who works for the government’s population welfare department, tells IPS.
Vasectomy involves a minor procedure to snip the sperm ducts. Sudhayao himself resorted to the method when he decided that his family was compl…
MANAGUA, Aug 31 2012 (IPS) – Luisa Gutiérrez, 65, dances a frenzied mambo on an unusual dance floor: a street in the Nicaraguan capital. Dozens of cars line up behind her, honking their horns impatiently, while she, surrounded by elderly people with canes, walkers and protest signs, dances to demand a government pension.
The street dance performed by Gutiérrez, a former employee of a privately-owned footwear company that has since closed, is one of the diverse forms of protest staged by 20,000 retired workers who have come together in the non-governmental Older Adult Unit (UNAM).
The demonstrations will be stepped up in September, on the fifth anniversary of the start of the continuous protests.
UNAM is demanding the reinstatement of an old law requiring that t…
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (centre) speaks with a tuberculosis (TB) patient during his visit to the Institute of Respiratory Medicine in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
WASHINGTON, Oct 17 2012 (IPS) – The next several years could see either the elimination of tuberculosis in some regions or millions of otherwise preventable deaths, according to released in Washington Wednesday by the World health Organisation (WHO).
The outcome, experts are warning, rests on a three-billion-dollar gap in funding needed to fully address TB next year as well to ensure the proper introduction of new drugs.
“On the one hand we have existing as well as n…
Charles Kayongo, a Ugandan bar owner, and his wife Eunice, have defied traditional beliefs and refuse to have more than two children. Credit: Dennis Kasirye/IPS
KAMPALA, Nov 15 2012 (IPS) – Charles Kayongo of Uganda is a father of two girls aged five and three. And even though age-old traditions among his ethnic group, the Baganda, say a man should have an unlimited number of children and a son as an heir, Kayongo refuses to have more children.
Like a growing number of cash-strapped young parents in this landlocked East African nation who yearn for a modern lifestyle, he says that he and his wife, Eunice Kayongo, want a small family.
“Enough is enough. I do not…
WASHINGTON, Jan 9 2013 (IPS) – U.S. citizens suffer from poorer health than nearly all other industrialised countries, according to the first comprehensive government analysis on the subject, released Wednesday.
Of 17 high-income countries looked at by a committee of experts sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the United States is at or near the bottom in at least nine indicators.
These include infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, and adolescent pregnancies, as well as more systemic issues such as injuries, homicides, and rates of disability.
Together, such issues place U.S. males at the very bottom of the list, among those countries, for life expectancy; on average, a U.S. male can be expected to live almost four…
WASHINGTON, Mar 21 2013 (IPS) – Patients, doctors and international aid groups are calling on donors and governments to support measures that would make treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis more effective and accessible.
The demands are being made amidst the recent or imminent approval of two new drugs, bedaquiline and delamanid. Advocates say the drugs present an historic opportunity to tackle the notoriously difficult-to-treat disease.
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“As we know with all infectious diseases, we need to seize this opportunity before an airborne infectious disease gets too out of control,” Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a policy advisor with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an aid group, told IPS.
On Monday, MSF released a , signed by TB patients and their do…
Syrian refugee children learn to survive at a camp in north Lebanon. Credit: Zak Brophy/IPS.
WASHINGTON, May 14 2013 (IPS) – Humanitarian assistance groups in Washington are warning that the health care system has become a deliberate target in the increasingly brutal civil war in Syria, presenting major challenges to addressing the humanitarian and refugee crises spurred by the conflict.
In a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron stressed the centrality of the unfolding health crisis, emphasising the need in Syria to care for trauma injuries, help torture victims to recover, [and get] Syrian families clean drinking …
Government hospitals in Kashmir are mostly visited by the poor. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
SRINAGAR, India, Jun 5 2013 (IPS) – Leaning on her daughter’s arm in the post-operative ward of a hospital in Srinagar, capital of the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Raja Begam views the anti-infection pill she is being offered with a large dose of suspicion.
“How can I be sure it will relieve my suffering?” the 49-year-old asked. Begam has just had her gall bladder removed and is giving her attendants a tough time, insisting, “Everyone says we are being fed fake drugs in Kashmir.
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Intellectual property provisions proposed by the United States would extend monopoly powers derived from patents to pharmaceutical companies that sell their medicines abroad. Credit: Bigstock
WASHINGTON, Jul 16 2013 (IPS) – As a new round of talks behind a major proposed free trade area, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), get underway this week, the United States is pushing several developing countries to accept provisions that critics say would make it more difficult for their citizens to access medicine.
“The concern about access to medicine, and that the TPP deal will lead to high health-care costs, is huge,” Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of Citizens Tr…